‘They went sight-seeing, they weren’t at the airport’: Two junior employees miss their flight back from Nashville after skipping work events and ignoring repeated reminders, leaving company director to deal with corporate fallout once they end up stranded

Author image for Etai Eshet
Etai Eshet • Editor
Aug 13, 2025 4:00 AM EDT

There's a special circle of corporate life reserved for anyone unlucky enough to get cast as a camp counselor to adults who apparently missed the adulthood memo.

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  • Supervising junior coworkers on a business trip quickly becomes a kind of existential theater, the kind where itineraries are treated like myth and every sensible boundary is just a suggestion, not a rule.


    These two were not malicious workplace anarchists. They simply radiated the unstoppable confidence of people convinced the universe would rearrange itself for their convenience. Official business agenda: ignored. Professional dress code: interpreted creatively, with a side of denim and bravado. Every reasonable attempt at communication, every practical update about which plane to catch, floated into the void with the tragic futility of a message in a bottle cast from a deserted island.

  • AITAH for still getting on a flight home when my two young coworkers I was traveling with weren’t at the airport yet and were obviously going to miss it?

    Dep "These are adults, I'm not responsible for their decisions"
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • I am a Director at my company. My Co decided to send two junior-level employees to the event as well because they thought it would be a good experience for them -
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  • Workplaces cling to the myth that adults will default to personal responsibility, that the simple urge to make a flight is hard-wired into our survival instinct. Reality, though, prefers chaos; when the consequences hit, it activates the primordial solution: call mom and let her escalate from missed flight to full catastrophe in record time, as if airports double as thinly veiled portals to other dimensions.

    In the end, the director who boarded on schedule did not commit an act of cruelty but a simple act of survival. Professional boundaries exist for a reason; they are the only thing standing between work travel and a limitless cycle of adult hide-and-seek that ends in group therapy for the responsible parties.

  • a Specialist who has been with us a little over a year (25f, first job out of college) and a summer intern (21f, rising senior). They are not on my team
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  • (report up through separate VP) and I have very limited / no interaction with them in daily work life. They were VERY excited to be going. This was going to be
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • the Specialist's first time on a plane, lots of Teams chats asking what to wear, etc. We were flying in Thursday morning and leaving Friday evening so it was a very short trip,
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  • but I tried to help share info about the event (types of attendees, awards reception/presentation Thursday night with a country western theme, then I was speaking on a panel Friday morning).
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  • There's so much I could say, but I'll try to highlight key points: - Specialist barely made Thursday AM flight because she doesn't have a Real ID and had to do extra screening.
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  • She had no idea what a Real ID was, or the basic rules of flying (liquid restrictions, etc.) She was VERY upset they made her throw away some of her skincare that was over 3oz.
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  • Departur 1954
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    The image does not depict the actual subjects of the story. Subjects are models.

  • - Thurs night event was country western theme, and while a majority of people there were business casual, Intern shows up in a bandana tube top, micro skirt, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat.
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  • I pulled her aside and asked if she wanted to run upstairs and change since it was still a business event, but she said she was fine and she thought she looked cute and on-theme.
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  • - After ceremony I invite them to join me with some colleagues | knew from other Companies in the hotel bar, but they tell me they want to "check out Broadway".
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  • I make a face and say this would be a good networking opportunity, they make "c'mon mom" jokes, and so I tell them to be safe and remind them the time and location of first session the next day.
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  • - Text them around 11pm that I hope they got back safe, no response. Went to bed. Text them the next morning offering to meet them for coffee before morning sessions, no response.
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  • - No idea if they actually attended any sessions or saw my panel, but I did find them in the hotel lobby afterward looking incredibly hungover.
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  • - Have about 2 hours after event is over and before we need to go to the airport, I invite them to late lunch with our agency partners.
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  • They decline because they want to go to the Country Music Hall of Fame. Again, make a face and say I don't know if they will have time and I think it would be a good opportunity for them to spend time with our agency.
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  • They act like I'm the wet blanket so I tell them I'm leaving for airport from the hotel at 4pm sharp and meet me in lobby so we can share a Lyft.
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  • - Text them at 3:45pm that Lyft is arriving in 15 mins, no response. - Text them that Lyft has arrived and I'm leaving for airport, no response.
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  • - Text them when I get to airport and tell them security line is long (neither had pre-check), no response. - Text them when I get to gate to please give me some sign of life, Intern sends very short response about 10 mins later:
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  • "In Lyft, there's traffic." Nothing - else. - Text them flight is starting to board, no response. Text them when I'm in my seat that boarding is about to end, no response.
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  • Doors close, they don't make it, put my phone in airplane mode. Land a couple hours later to a barrage of texts from them.
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  • They're "stranded in Nashville", don't know what to do, how to rebook, who to call for help, etc. I also have an angry voicemail from Specialist's mom that I "abandoned her daughter in Nashville",
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  • she has never flown and has anxiety, she's having a panic attack at the airport and needs medical attention, she could be human trafficked (???).
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  • I call Specialist and Intern back, both phones ring but neither pick up. Text to see if they were able to rebook, no response.
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  • Forward them email with our business travel info with after- hours contact and text them that I sent the email, no response. Texted an hour or so later to see if they were okay, no response.
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  • Did not call the mom back. Also have text from their Director (don't know her well, just started with Co a couple weeks ago) asking what's going on.
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  • I send her brief overview and screenshots of all my unanswered texts to them from earlier in the day along with the transcript of the vm I got from the mom.
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  • She acknowledges my response, but no further dialogue. Now, I get an invite for a Monday morning meeting from that Director with their VP and our C-Suite leader.
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  • My VP is on PTO. I feel like these are adults, I was communicative, and I'm ultimately not responsible for their decisions. But you tell me, AITA here?
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  • TL;DR: Went on a work trip with two junior employees (not on my team) and they missed the flight home because they went sight-seeing the day we were leaving.
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  • I still got on flight even though they weren't at the airport. Long version - This past week I was presented with an industry award in Nashville that an agency partner nominated me for.
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management boss workplace-stories hr manager bosses work PTO managers supervisor workplace Horrible Bosses work-life balance
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